Deferred Maintenance and Its Impact on Communities

Many roads, highways and bridges built decades ago were designed to carry 10 times less traffic than what they currently endure. Keeping up with infrastructure repairs and updates is difficult for state and local governments faced with shrinking resources, leading to deferred maintenance. The cost of deferring repairs on a day-to-day scale is small. However, as the minor expenses compound, the cost grows into a substantial expenditure. One problem turns into multiple major problems, in turn decaying physical assets to the point of serious fiscal and tangible consequences.